This is a choreography for three dancers exploring an abstract form of movement. Starting from the gestures of the hands and drawing on different street dance practices (such as popping, waving, voguing and flexing), the work creates a shifting system of energy and form. The hands become expressive units in a choreography that can suggest everything or nothing, using the immediacy of street dance to engage the audience directly.

The hand has long been thought of as a conduit of power, which transforms invisible energy into the world of form. The Latin term MANIFESTUS (clear, evident) includes the word manus (hand). Manifesting is the way of saying I AM HERE!, it is the moment in which we catch a fleeting stretch of reality, caught in the act, and present it to the evidence of the public, of the square, of others. There is no break between thought, gesture and imagination: the hands create, shape both matter and ideas. They are faces without eyes, but seeing and speaking.

Concept, direction, choreography: Jacopo Jenna
Choreographic collaboration: Mattia Quintavalle SLY
Dance: Simone De Giovanni, Petra Audrey Mangoua Youaleu, Phex
Sound: Alberto Ricca/Bienoise
Technical direction and lights: Mattia Bagnoli
Organization: Luisa Zuffo
Production: Klm – Kinkaleri, Le Supplici, mk
With the support of: OperaEstate Festival, MilanOltre Festival, Fabbrica Europa

Presentation supported by the Italian Cultural Institute Stockholm

Wednesday 6 May at 18.30: Introduction between Jacopo Jenna and Freddy Houndekindo
19:00 Performance

During the festival, Jenna’s dance films will be screened: READ MORE

Don’t miss the opportunity to participate in a dance workshop: READ MORE

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Jacopo Jenna is a choreographer and director creating stage works, video pieces and installations. His work explores choreography as an extended practice, through research that involves dance and video, studying new possibilities for embodying movement, passing through various languages and generating multiple performative contexts. Often audiovisual arts and movement are in dialogue, creating a performative act. As a graduate of Sociology at the University of Urbino Italy, he also studied dance in Codarts (Rotterdam Dance Academy). He creates training and educational programmes for various age groups experimenting with new ways of relating to performance art.

His work participated in festivals and venues including: Centrale Fies (Dro), Palazzo Strozzi (Florence), Pecci Center for Contemporary Art (Prato), Fabbrica Europa (Florence), Short Theatre (Rome), CNBD (Bucharest), Dansem (Marseille), Bipod Festival (Beirut), YPAM (Yokohama), Palazzo Grassi Punta della Dogana (Venice), Chantiers d’Europe – Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Do Disturb – Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Mudam Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg, MAXXI (Roma), B-Motion festival (Bassano del Grappa), MilanOltre Festival (Milan), Tanec Praha festival, Belgrade Dance Festival, Tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf), Aerowaves Twenty22, NID – Italian Dance Platform (2022|2024).